Portraits of The Songs | BON IVER

V. Michicant

Sometimes he wondered if he had ever grown up at all.

Sometimes he thought he was still the same little boy, skinny with skin sunburnt from playing outdoor too much, far too curious to find out more about the world to sit down and behave. Back then it was simpler, things were simpler. He didn't know that much to think about that many things. He only cared about finding them out.

He didn't need to deal with how he was supposed to handle knowing it.

But looking at the more lean figurine lying down on his bed, in front of him, beads of sweats all over her temple, her neck and face, he found himself needing to figure everything out. Act right. Do right.

But what, he didn't know.

He was almost forty and he still didn't quite understand what it was that he felt right this second. He thought with so many things he'd experience during his long period of being alive, he'd know what this is. That what wiseman said about person getting wiser as he aged was true. But that was apparently not true, because he found himself feeling like he was back to when he was ten.

Awkward, curious, confused, but mostly, obliviously acting stupid.

That feeling. This thing. Was indescribable.

He thought about finding it out like when he was still a boy, but this thing was an abstract fragment of something that he couldn't see with his eyes, touch, smell, nor hear. It was the inside of him that's struggling to feel it and figuring it out.

Well, no, actually, what he needed to figure out actually lied there quite obvious to his eyes, the soft round of stomach of the woman in front of him, like it was screaming at him to be noticed, begging to come out. Impatient, wanting to meet him soon, and to meet the world. Meet her, or his mama.

And he found himself getting scared by the thought of that. Even though he was the same brave boy who grew up almost unafraid about everything.

His eyes snapped back up to the woman's face, the ones who always seemed to be able to make himself calm. But when he met those brown eyes, they soon clamped shut and he suddenly lost all its calmness. All he saw were the hurt, and then her scream, his feet planted even more solidly to the ground as he watched that roundness demanding to get out. Explode.

What?

Explode? Like hell, she'd die if that's what happen during childbirth.

And he freaked out.

How he wished he was the same little boy who knew nothing of the world like he was more than thirty years ago.

If he was that little boy he could run, run as fast as he can until he found something more interesting to occupy his mind, forgetting about the previous thing that's trying to haunt his mind.

But he was this forty years old, grown up man. And frankly, he actually didn't mind letting it haunt his mind.

So he tried grasping her hands, somehow wishing he could transfer his strength that way to her. But that was probably the other way around, because he was sure she was the one transfering too much strength to his hand as she squeezed the life out of his hand.

And then he heard that cry.

He felt himself bursting with curiosity like he was a little boy all over again.

That little roundness was screaming out his lungs at him now, skin sticky with goo but with two perfect hands and feet.

He looked to his big beady blue eyes, much strangely familiarly like his, and he found himself staring back to that skinny, sunburnt skinned boy that he was, so many years ago. And he found himself feeling okay to be back to that little boy again.

He realized he didn't need to find out about anything. He stared down to the little boy and thought to himself that he would just be that little boy that he was thirty years ago, for this boy.

And he smiled.